Menster home for afflicted children
by Sheila Prior
Summary: "Hey, nice to meet you all. My name is Frankie stein. Well, Francesca is technically my real name, but I don't really think it's me. I'm not what you'd call normal, and yes, I do know that normal isn't actually possible, but, I mean physically normal. See, I have a condition called Heart block. Second degree heart block to be specific." Human au, au belongs to Forfun100


**Hey guys, so, I just got a lovely idea for a monster high story, since it's kind of my guilty pleasure, and this au does not belong to me, but to Forfun100, so thanks for this au friend!***

Hey, nice to meet you all. My name is Frankie stein. Well, Francesca is technically my real name, but I don't really think it's _me_. I'm not what you'd call normal, and yes, I do know that normal isn't actually possible, but, I mean physically normal. See, I have a condition called Heart block. Second degree heart block to be specific. It occurs when some electrical signals from the atria don't reach the ventricles, resulting in "dropped beats." So basically my heart literally skips beats and has a whole bunch of side effects because of it, like light-headedness, fatigue, chest pains, that sort of thing. Yeah, as if my personality isn't freaky enough. So, I guess that's what you need to know about me for me to tell this story.

* * *

Anyway, so, it had kinda been getting worse lately, and my dad, Viktor Stein, had taken me to the hospital to check with my doctor. I sat in the office with the nurse, Jackson(Betcha din't see that coming), who was finishing up the usual stuff.

"So, how's everything going at school?" He asked sweetly. I shrugged.

"Come on J, you know I don't fit in there, you and Robecca are basically my only friends." I replied, trying not to sound bitter. He rolled his eyes.

"Come on Frankie, if you opened up, I'm sure they'd love you. What about the cheer-leading squad?" He smiled at me. Now it was my turn to roll my eyes.

"You mean all the girls who only let me on because of my flexibility and practically hate me? No thanks."

"I'm serious, come on, you're amazing to be around when you aren't being a bitter barbie." He smirked and I feigned offence.

"Jackson Jekyl, I thought you were supposed to be nice to the patients." Okay, now our eyes were rolling like heads. Finally, the door opened and Robecca, or rather, Doctor steam, opened the door, walking on her two prosthetic legs. We liked joking that she was half robot. She smiled as she saw me.

"Morning Frankie, good to see you again, well, you know what I mean." She chuckled. I smiled.

"Thanks Doc." I replied."So, what's the sitch? Has it actually turned out to be possible to go from second to third degree or something?" I asked sarcastically. She and my dad usually talked about most medical stuff. That junk went waay over my head. She rolled her eyes.

"No, but your father told me how bad the side effects have been getting." She sat down and put down her clipboard. I bit my lip and watched as Jackson shuffled out of the room. I looked back at Robecca."Anyway, I think it's gotten to the point that you can't go to school, or..well, do a whole lot actually without everything getting worse, and maybe actually getting to third degree." I paled. I thought it was supposed to be impossible.

"No, nononononononono, that can't be true, you said it was-"

"I'm sorry Frankie, but a study was conducted and it is possible, just rare, and, well, with the amount of risk you put yourself at with cheer-leading and school, your heart can't take it." I looked down and put my head in my hands.

"So what am I supposed to do now, just stay at home forever? Or worse, live at the hospital?!" I moaned. I loved my parents and wasn't exactly fond of high school, but I did love cheer-leading, and I liked going out to watch movies, and going to coffee shops and taking in the city. And I was just supposed to give all that up?

"Not exactly." Her voice broke me out of it. I looked up at her, and she was smiling. "There's a place that's kind of like a college dorm building. An old friend of mine runs it and is willing to take in new patients. He turned his giant house into a home after his daughter was diagnosed with. . . something or other."

"Patients?" I cocked my head to the side."I thought you said it wasn't a hospital?"

"It's not, more like a group home for people with illnesses like yours."

"People with heart block?" I blinked. She chuckled.

"No silly, people, mostly teens like you, that have conditions that make their life a little harder to live. Like, lupus, cardiomyopathy, some have unknown illnesses and prefer to stay there to try and figure it out. You would stay there until you were fit to leave, go back to normalish life, or until. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . You know." I bit my lip at that point. Yeah. _That_ ever looming possibility. It wasn't really confirmed if people could die from it, well, we couldn't find anything that said it could. There hadn't been a case we knew of, but since it was actually fairly new in terms of medical afflictions. I was broken out of my trance once more and looked at Robecca, who was printing off some paperwork. She handed it to me."All you need to do is sign it and send it to the address listed. One more thing, it is actually free, so, your dad wouldn't need to pay for anything." She smiled. I did too at that last part. My dad was always tight for money. "Well, that's it for today." She hugged me."I hope I don't have to see you in here for too long." She patted my shoulder and walked out with me, limping a little. I walked 'out to dad and she told him about the house, camp, thingy.

"Bye Robecca!" I waved, smiling. She waved back and smiled in return.

* * *

A week had passed since then and I was now in a cab on my way to the home. Menster home for afflicted children. Kind of stuffy so I'm just gonna call it Menster from now on. I pulled my scary cute suitcase out of the trunk with some help from the driver, and gulped as I walked up the stairs to the giant mansion. I took a breath and knocked on the door. It quickly opened and I was met by a man with strikingly pale skin and slicked back salt and pepper hair.

"Ah you must be Francesca." He smiled, a bit of an accent I couldn't place leaking through.

"Frankie actually, please and thank you." I replied, trying to be polite.

"Frankie, of course, come on in." He stood back and let me in. I looked back at the empty space where the taxi had been. No turning back now. I walked inside and took in the place. It was breathtaking. It looked like an old Transylvania mansion. There are more words I could use to describe them, but then we'd be here for an entire chapter, maybe another book.

"Wow, you really have a nice house." I told him. He chuckled."Thank you. Oh, right, My name is Draco, Draco La." He stuck out his hand. I took it and shook it.

"Pleasure to meet you mister La." I smiled.

"You can call me Draco, or Mister La, whatever you would prefer." He replied, shaking my hand in response before letting go. "Why don't I take you to the living room and you can introduce yourself to everyone?" He suggested. I nodded.

"That sounds nice." I lied. I was what many people refer to as an awkward turtle, so I was a little nervous, but never the less, I walked with Mister La into the room. There were a lot of people there. All of them teens.

"Everyone!" Mr. La Called. Everyone turned to look at us and I had more than half the mind to hide behind the older man."This is Frankie Stein, I expect you'll all make her feel welcome here." There came a chorus of positive responses, which relaxed me a little bit. "Alright, very good, I shall leave you all to your socializing then. Frankie, if you need anything, my office is right down the hall, second door on your right." He told me before leaving. Most of the others went back to whatever they were doing. Two girls came up to me.

"Hi there!" The shorter one said excitedly, with the same accent as Mr. La.

"How's it goin?" Added a girl next to her with a different accent. They smiled at me.

"Uh hi." I replied shyly. Toldja, awkward turtle.

"Nice to meet you Frankie. I'm Laura, this is Claudine." The first one smiled.

"But we like to call this one Draculaura for various reasons." Claudine smiled.

"Various reasons my butt, it's just because of my oh so hilarious skin cancer." Laura, or Draculaura replied annoyed. Claudine only laughed, and I giggled. Draculaura was kind of adorable, sue me.

"Nice to meet you both." I replied.

"So, what's your damage?" Claudine asked, hands on her hips. I blinked in confusion.

"She Means how come you're here?" Draculaura clarified. I nodded.

"Got it, uh, Heart block, you?" I asked.

"Well, you already heard, but, skin cancer." Draculaura replied.

"Lupus, sorry ta hear about the heart block." Claudine frowned. I shrugged in response.

"Not your fault. My mom had lupus too when she was pregnant with me, so, therefor, heart blockage." I smiled.

"Got it, well, welcome to Menster." Claudine replied. They started to show me around, introduce me to people. I'll go into details about them all later. I suddenly looked up at the sound of something clanging.

"Nathan, dude, you okay?" A boy named Holt asked someone. I looked over at him and saw him helping up a boy with a crutch, I mean, the boy had a crutch, not Holt, I mean, you know what I mean.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm okay." He replied, and steadied himself on the floor. I looked and saw a somewhat shriveled leg trailing behind him. Then suddenly, he looked over at me. WE made brief eye contact before he smiled gently and waved in my direction. I was pretty sure I waved back, I couldn't tell before Claudine and Draculaura were dragging me off.

"Hey, wh-who was that?" I asked, hoping a blush wasn't making it's way up my face.

"Who, ohhh, him, that's Nathan. Polio." Draculaura replied. I nodded and tried to keep up.

"Nathan." I repeated, looking back at the boy, Nathan, who was now talking to Holt about something or other.

Maybe this place wouldn't be so bad after all.


End file.
